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The Fire by Katherine Neville
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Recently added byprivate library, ericksoc, ereci, factotum01, Tuesdaygroup, insaid, sschleicher, lensperry, ldr259, kmcgraw

Member recommendations

  1. cat505 recommends Black Market Truth by Sharon Kaye
  2. PghDragonMan recommends The Eight by Katherine Neville, "The two books are connected by the Montglane Service and The Game"
  3. PghDragonMan recommends Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco, "Numerology, arcane science, secret societies and foreign languages bind these two works together."
  4. PghDragonMan recommends Angels & Demons by Dan Brown, "Both works feature mystic orders carrying secret information. Both are founded on just enough history to leave you wondering if really could be true."
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Showing 1-5 of 173 (next | show all)
I only recently discovered this author when I read 'The Eight'. I loved that book and the discussion we had was very interesting. So I was very excited to receive the sequel, 'The Fire'. The book was enjoyable but in my opinion not as good as 'The Eight'. But then, sequels usually fall short of our expectations. I would recommend reading it though if you loved the first book. It is nice to see the story continued.
  sschleicher | Jan 27, 2010 |
This book, which involves a centuries long search for a chess set,was, for lack of a nicer word, boring. The plot was interesting enough to catch my attention before I read it, but by halfway through, I had force myself to not stop reading after two pages, and eventually gave up. It just drags on throughout most of the story. Perhaps I would be submitting a nicer review if I'd read the whole novel.
  NobodysGirl | Jan 13, 2010 |
The Fire is a complicated adventure novel involving a centuries-long search for a famous chess set and the solution to its mysteries. Parallel stories set in present day and in the 1820s track the efforts of the Black Team and the White Team to find the missing game pieces, discover the meaning of The Game, and figure out just who is on which team -- and if it matters.

This is definitely an adventure story rather than a thriller. It is full of symbolism and riddle-solving, all interwoven with history, but it is more Mists of Avalon than Da Vinci Code. The story unfolds but never heats up.

The story drags as the characters dither and, while the plot is moderately interesting, it is not a particularly exciting book. There is a lot of talk about the heroine being in danger, but there is never any actual danger. The only deaths occurred in the past and usually involved historic figures. There are no chase scenes, sneak attacks, near misses – no immediate risks or sense of suspense at all.

The big conclusion when the heroine solves the mystery of The Game once and for all is a big snooze. At least the solution of The Da Vinci Code was profound – blasphemous, but profound. The solution of The Game is no more profound than a brochure for a New Age spa.

Also posted on Rose City Reader. ( )
1 vote ggchickapee | Dec 4, 2009 |
The Fire
By Katherine Neville

A copy of this book was received from the Early Reviewers Program of LibraryThing. The story was interesting because it took the reader through many countries that I have visited; Italy, Turkey, United Kingdom, Canada, Greece, France, and Russia. The story also revolves around a city in our current news, Baghdad.

Unfortunately I had not read the first book in this series, The Eight…but I plan to do so. With some knowledge of the game of chess, I was able to follow the story when referencing the complex and strategic skill required to participate at this level of competition.

Story line is fast paced, full of globe trotting escapades, puzzling brainteasers and strong female characters.

When reading this book you must have time to absorb all the rich details as almost every chapter leaped from a different time and place.

The Fire is recommend for a reader interested in seeing history through different eyes and tying events together in an innovative way. ( )
  memasmb | Nov 30, 2009 |
I feel bad because I received this as part of the Early Reviewers but havent read it. To be fair though, this was an extra. I was never notified about it, it just showed up on my doorstep one day. I think that they had extras that month. I didn't realize when I requested it that it was actually a sequel. I finally have the first book and plan on coming back to add an actual review as soon as I read it!
  wizardsheart | Nov 27, 2009 |
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Epigraph
Dedication
To Solano
First words
Solarin gripped his little daughter's mittened hand firmly in his own.
Quotations
"...what game was it?" "An ancient Game,...that was based upon a rare and valuable bejweled Mesopotamian chess set that once belonged to Charlemagne. It was believed to have certain dangerous powers and to be possessed by a curse."
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Book description

Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0345500679, Hardcover)

Katherine Neville’s groundbreaking novel, The Eight, dazzled audiences more than twenty years ago and set the literary stage for the epic thriller. A quest for a mystical chess service that once belonged to Charlemagne, it spans two centuries and three continents, and intertwines historic and modern plots, archaeological treasure hunts, esoteric riddles, and puzzles encrypted with clues from the ancient past. Now the electrifying global adventure continues, in Neville’s long anticipated sequel: THE FIRE

2003, Colorado: Alexandra Solarin is summoned home to her family’s ancestral Rocky Mountain hideaway for her mother’s birthday. Thirty years ago, her parents, Cat Velis and Alexander Solarin, believed that they had scattered the pieces of the Montglane Service around the world, burying with them the secrets of the power that comes with possessing it. But Alexandra arrives to find that her mother is missing and that a series of strategically placed clues, followed swiftly by the unexpected arrival of a mysterious assortment of houseguests, indicates that something sinister is afoot. 

When she inadvertently discovers from her aunt, the chess grandmaster Lily Rad, that the most powerful piece of Charlemagne’s service has suddenly resurfaced and the Game has begun again, Alexandra is swept into a journey that takes her from Colorado to the Russian wilderness and at last into the heart of her own hometown: Washington D.C.

1822, Albania: Thirty years after the French Revolution, when the chess service was unearthed, all of Europe hovers on the brink of the War of Greek Independence. Ali Pasha, the most powerful ruler in the Ottoman Empire, has angered the sultan and is about to be attacked by Turkish forces. Now he sends the only person he can rely upon–his young daughter, Haidee–on a dangerous mission to smuggle a valuable relic out of Albania, through the mountains and over the sea, to the hands of the one man who might be able to save it.

Haidee’s journey from Albania to Morocco to Rome to Greece, and into the very heart of the Game, will result in revelations about the powerful chess set and its history that will lead at last to the spot where the service was first created more than one thousand years before: Baghdad.

Blending exquisite prose and captivating history with nonstop suspense, Neville again weaves an unforgettable story of peril, action, and intrigue.

(retrieved from Amazon Tue, 05 Jan 2010 11:43:56 -0500)

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